


Queen Takes Witch

by Jaina_Pridemoore



Series: Queens of the Damned [1]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, Warcraft III, World of Warcraft
Genre: Dissociation, F/F, Forsaken Jaina Proudmoore, Memory Loss, Pre-Femslash, Trauma, Undead Jaina Proudmoore, Undeath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:27:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26219350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaina_Pridemoore/pseuds/Jaina_Pridemoore
Summary: Death was only the beginning. Liberation is only the first step.In which chains are broken, and the lich formerly known as Jaina Proudmoore is given a choice.
Relationships: Jaina Proudmoore & Sylvanas Windrunner, Jaina Proudmoore/Sylvanas Windrunner
Series: Queens of the Damned [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904173
Comments: 16
Kudos: 233





	Queen Takes Witch

**Author's Note:**

> CW for some unpleasant metaphors. Violation of bodily autonomy, mental illness, etc.

A girl huddled in the shadowy depths of the Frostwitch’s skull, looking out at the blizzard her body had unleashed. The world beyond her eyes was white, all howling wind and razor frost, flashes of magic and metal and putrid blood… 

Someone was shouting through that blizzard. 

_“Fight him!”_

She knew that voice. 

Why did she know that voice? 

**_“Frostwitch!!”_ **

And why was it talking to _her?_ It wasn’t as if she could answer. 

_“He is weakened, and you have never been stronger!_ **_Fight!”_ **

But… she _was_ fighting. Or— He was, through her, _wielding_ her— 

...no. Not him. 

That wasn’t _His_ voice. She couldn’t feel Him, only the compulsions, tugging firmly as chains… 

She was _alone_ in her skull. 

When was the last time—? 

No! 

_It’s a trick it’s a test it’s an_ ** _excuse_** _to hurt y—_

**_“Fight!”_ **

But if it wasn’t. 

If it _wasn’t._

 _—_ her arms swung without permission, hurling lightning through the blizzard but that sharp shadow _blurred_ aside, eyes burning red— 

If it _wasn’t—_

**_“FIGHT HIM!!”_ **

...well. 

Nothing left to lose, was there? 

She uncurled from the dark corner in which she’d hidden for so long, reaching blindly for the streams of frigid power that coursed through her corpse— and for the first time in forever, _seized_ them. 

Her traitor arms faltered in their death-dance, and spasmed, and— 

—and she could feel them. She could **_feel them—_ **

_“Now!”_

Something new crackled into existence around her, energies she didn’t recognize, and then she could feel _all of it._ Stiff, aching arms and legs and neck, the mana flowing into the staff and the weight of that staff in her hand _—_

Her hand.

 _Her_ hand. 

**_Her_ ** _hand—_

—and the cold pressure of His will rushing back into her and with it his _Voice—_

**_My love_ ** _—_

_I AM NOT YOURS!!!_

The words crashed through her skull, driving out all else— but her lungs and throat and mouth, so long abandoned, failed to shape them. 

What came out was a **_howl_ ** , high and sharp and _furious,_ slicing through the blizzard— 

She felt something _snap._

Everything was very heavy, all of a sudden. 

The world tilted around her. 

Her knees struck frozen stone— and with them pitch-black chains, clattering loud as thunder, each link inlaid with familiar runes that glowed icy blue but were slowly fading... 

And beside them a hand, flat against the floor. 

_Her_ hand, judging by its position. Grey-blue skin over slender bone. Coated with glittering frost.

_Hers._

She thought about it moving... and then it _did_ move, just a twitch of sinew beneath the skin—

And she told it it clench into a fist— and it _obeyed her._

Metal scraped against stone. 

She looked up, and beheld the shadow, the sharp one, the one that dodged and defied and shouted through the blizzard. 

The blizzard was gone, now, the cutting winds gone still and quiet. Thousands of tiny crystalline blades drifted slowly down, settling upon a purple hood and the purple metal around it, purple _armor,_ scratched and dented and gouged—

—and rising as the Shadow stood.

Burning eyes gazed down at her, like two red-hot coals, casting a bloody glow through the frigid mist... 

She _knew_ those eyes. 

There was a name, there. Somewhere. Or… a title? 

She couldn't quite recall the difference. 

Words with weight. With power. 

She tried to say them, and remembered that words needed breath— so she took one. 

It was... odd. Uncomfortable. Made things _move_ inside her, as if she were choking on her own throat, her own lungs... 

But it did its job. 

“Ban... shee." 

Those bloody eyes _blazed—_

“My _name,”_ the Shadow snarled, _“is_ **_Sylvanas.”_ **

...yes. Yes, she knew that, didn’t she? 

The Frostwitch opened her mouth to speak, and recalled again that it required breath, and took another. Once more her throat and chest opened to make room, flexing oddly, and she heard herself rasp, like wind through withered trees... 

“...Windrunner.” 

The Shadow’s eyes glowed through the thin skin of its eyelids as they shut. Purple-grey skin tensed between pale brows and around dark lips. 

Then it _—she—_ was staring again. 

“Proudmoore,” she said, and the sound _pierced,_ reached into the Frostwitch’s ribcage and— sort of— _plucked_ at a cord she hadn’t known was there. 

It _hurt._

What was... why did...? 

_“Jaina_ Proudmoore.”

Oh. 

Was that... was that _her_ name? 

Again the cord was plucked, and strange impressions emerged from the mists of her mind— that very name painted gold upon a lacquered sea-chest, a bronze anchor on sea-green cloth, a dour, uniformed woman, tears in her eyes, painted mouth forming words... 

...yes. 

_Jaina._

She was... _had been,_ Jaina, just as the Banshee had been Sylvanas. 

Which meant He had taken that from her as well. 

Movement. The Banshee. Sylvanas. Bending an arm to crack the ice that had encased it— and the Frostwitch beheld what she had done. 

The pauldrons were merely battered, but other pieces had been torn away entirely, baring more bloodless flesh— and the damage the blizzard had done to it. Brutal gashes sparkled in the pale light, encrusted as they were with frozen black blood. As the Frostwitch watched, the Banshee wrenched an icicle from her side and tossed it to the floor. 

Or, rather, the frost that _covered_ the floor. 

There was quite a lot of it, all but obscuring the grand sigil of Lordaeron beneath— upon which the Frostwitch knelt. All around her, great icicles had stabbed up out of the frost— and hanging impaled upon them were bodies. _Undead_ bodies, tattered cloth and rusted armor over gaunt, withered flesh. Some had already freed themselves, while others yet labored to do so, pushing and wiggling. One gave a final heave and clattered to the floor, then rose and staggered over towards the wall, to hack at the ice pinning what might have once been a dwarf. 

Dim yellow lights drew her gaze to the alcoves that ringed the room, and she saw that they were eyes, moving as yet more undead limped out of the shadows, stiff and wary. Some crawled, or were carried, their bodies too frozen or broken to walk. 

Tattered banners swayed overhead. Balconies sat dark and empty, icicles hanging from their railings. Cold mist shrouded the vaulted ceiling. 

She took another breath. 

“I...” her voice seemed small, weak, and her mouth and tongue felt clumsy around the words. Unfamiliar. “Forgive me, I...” 

“There is nothing to forgive.” The Banshee plucked needles of ice from her neck. “You did not choose this. _None of us_ did.” 

...no. 

They didn’t, did they? 

She remembered that much, at least. She remembered a handsome face gone pale and grim, cruel eyes reflecting glowing runes and a sudden, piercing cold in her chest— 

“...Arthas,” she whispered. 

And the Banshee’s eyes _burned._ Someone hissed, someone growled, someone spat on the ground...

It all seemed very far away. 

She could move her body again, but it was... stiff. Heavy. 

Hollow.

It felt very odd to be alone in her skull. No whispers or shouts to drown out her thoughts, no pressure to force her back into the corner... 

It was so dreadfully _quiet._

She was her own again. She knew that was what she wanted, all that she _had_ wanted as fiercely as she _could_ want for as long as she could remember, but now that she had it... 

What was she supposed to _do,_ now? 

Again, the Banshee moved. 

The Frostwitch was... grateful, for the distraction. Yes. 

She was approaching, the Shadow. The Banshee. Sylvanas. Walking slowly and gracefully, sabatons quietly crunching the frost. 

And then she knelt before the Frostwitch, just an arm’s length away, bringing them eye-to-eye. 

The Frostwitch realized she knew that face as well. She had seen it contorted in furious agony, had heard that voice wailing death to their (His?) enemies. 

It was placid, now, that face. Expressionless. It could have been a lovely mask, if not for those dark tear-streaks, those glowing eyes. The Frostwitch decided she liked those eyes. Or… the passion in them, rather, the defiant rage— 

Those lips were moving. 

“Do you remember?” The Banshee whispered. “What he did to you?” 

Did she—?

Cold fury burned through the hollows of her corpse, setting the ice crystals in the air aglow, sending fingers of frost creeping across the Banshee’s ruined armor— 

Did she _remember?_

It was the _**only** thing she could remember. _

A rabid smile, madness in familiar eyes, a freezing and a piercing and a wrenching _snap,_ a gauntleted hand reaching into her chest and _pulling—_

And then, once more, an aching, frozen hollowness. 

“My heart,” she rasped. “He tore out my heart.”

“And do you know where you are?” 

Of course she did. 

_Throne room._

_Lordaeron._

**_Defend._ **

That was… _had been_ her mandate. 

“Lordaeron,” she murmured. 

“The city itself,” said the Banshee. “A city that loved him. One of many he _desecrated._ ”

No. _No._

Not _Banshee._ Sylvanas. Windrunner. Ranger-General. And if she was here, if she was _dead,_ then—

“Quel... thalas...?”

Those eyes burned brighter, rage overflowing as crimson light, dark lips curling back from wicked fangs, black mist slithering off her— 

“You,” she growled, “are not alone.” 

Oh. 

That was… 

“Do you mind?”

What?

She followed Sylvanas' gaze, looked down— 

At the two arrows sprouting out of her chest. And the one in her thigh. 

“You had to be subdued, before we could free you. It was not easy.”

The Frostwitch didn’t know what to say to that. So she just nodded. 

One clawed gauntlet settled over her chest. The other gripped the shaft of an arrow, and tugged it out. 

There was no blood. 

“Your memories will return with time.” Sylvanas slid the arrow back into her quiver, and gripped the next. “Not all of them, but many. For now we must secure the city, and free all those we can.” 

“How?” the Frostwitch managed. “How did you...” 

The third and final arrow returned to the quiver. Sylvanas rose smoothly to her feet. 

“Something drew him north. He _overextended_ himself. His powers are not limitless, and we, you and I, were two of his most powerful weapons.” 

Weapon. Yes. She… remembered thinking that. Remembered Him calling her _beloved_ as he stole her heart and wrapped her soul in chains, as he forced her to kill and kill and _kill—_

“Jaina.” 

She looked up. 

She could think about looking up and her body would just _do it,_ now—

Sylvanas stood over her, tall and dark and so grimly beautiful, one hand outstretched, palm-up— 

“Rise,” she said. “Justice will not bring itself.” 

A laugh slithered out the Frostwitch’s throat like a serpent, choked and choking. 

“Justice? It’s all gone. All _ruined_ . What _justice_ can there be for this?”

“…perhaps none.” The hand remained, open and offering. “But a million more of us still strain against the yoke. Will you help me free them? Will you _avenge_ them, and yourself? Or will you languish in this frozen tomb, cold and forgotten?” 

She remembered, with a sudden ache, seeing smoke on the horizon and knowing it was Dalaran, seeing the other apprentices fall and rise again and turn on her— 

“We…” her voice was a dry, withered, thing, far too small to hold her fury or her pain— “We will have vengeance?” 

_“Yes.”_ The Banshee’s voice was strength, was command, was an ironclad promise of _wrath—_ “For **_all of it._** By any means necessary.” 

The blizzard inside her howled its excitement. She knew, somehow, that if she looked down she would see ice spreading from her fingertips. Without permission. She would have to work on that.

“Dark Lady.” 

Heavy boots crunched over the frost. A bent-backed shape stalked into sight, familiar armor dented and stained, eyes glowing dimly yellow… “The ruins are ours. Only the catacombs remain unconquered.” 

Sylvanas did not move. Did not look away from the Frostwitch. 

“Push forward,” she said. “Corral as many as you can. Free those you cannot.”

“It will be done.” He bowed his head, and limped away. 

The Frostwitch looked back up at… 

At her _rescuer._

“Dark Lady?” she asked. 

“Lady of freedom,” came another voice, wet and gurgling. 

She turned, and saw a woman pulling ice shards from her belly. 

“Of vengeance,” said another. 

_“Queen,”_ someone whispered— and a dozen others echoed it, humans and dwarves and red-eyed elves joining in a wretched, rattling chorus— 

**_“QUEEN!”_ **

“Jaina,” said that Queen, hand still outstretched, “come. Make use of your freedom.” 

Her voice reverberated oddly through the throne room… but it did not pierce the Frostwitch’s skull, did not force her limbs to move or her magic to pour forth. 

There were no chains. No compulsions. 

Just the woman before her, the free undead around them... 

And a choice. 

So Jaina reached up, and took the Dark Lady’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, "Do you remember what he did to you" is a very triggering thing to ask. Yes, Sylvanas is aware of this. Liberating the other undead is her primary goal, but she's also trying to conquer a city-- why let an ally like Jaina sit and process when she could rile her up and point her at the enemy? 
> 
> More delicious, angsty Forsaken feels coming soon.


End file.
